Wilshire Blvd Bus Talk

Streetsblog, who attended last night's meeting to discuss making a bus-only lane for the Westside, reports that the scope of the project could be a bit broader: Advocates are pushing for bus only lanes from Valencia Street in Downtown to Centinela Boulevard just outside of Santa Monica (excluding Beverly Hills). But last night's meeting concerned Wilshire Boulevard: "The plan is to re-stripe Wilshire Boulevard to make the curb lanes in each direction bus only lanes. In some areas the lanes would require no paving and in others there would need to be a slight widening of the street. Seventeen intersections will be redesigned to improve timing and expand signal priority for buses...By removing buses from the snail's pace of rush hour traffic, Metro will be able to sweepingly reverse the trend of longer commutes for transit riders along the Wilshire Corridor." The draft environmental review will be available to the public next March. [Streetsblog]